Coming in 2017. A big book from your ocean loving friends at The Scuttlefish and Chronicle Books.

Hey all, after a few years, hundreds of weird and interesting stories, and a lot of fun it’s time to put The Scuttlefish on pause. Several months ago, Chris Dixon and I had an idea for an ocean related book. That idea turned into a proposal, and that proposal has become a contract with Chronicle Books, publisher of among other titles, Chris’s Ghost Wave, Matt Warshaw’s The History of Surfing, The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook and of course, Darth Vader and Son.

We are keeping the details under wraps for now, but it’s a project that we couldn’t pass up and there’s not enough time in the day to do both the book and this site. The Scuttlefish has gone into hibernation before, though and I’m sure it’ll come back in a different form, one day. Thanks to our faithful readers – and the ocean – for all the inspiration.

It’s weird the stuff you decide to file in your folder book of memories. The above note is one such recently found object. It’s my very first, of very, very many professional rejection notes. If you’re a writer, you get used to rejection notes from editors. If you don’t, well, you’d better find other work. Aside from being a first, what makes this letter so very damn special is that it was written and signed by none other than Matt Warshaw. If you’re a surfer who’s worth even a grain of salt, you know him. If you’re not a surfer, suffice to say that the author of The History of Surfing and editor of The Encyclopedia of Surfing is to our sport as Ken Burns is to baseball – or James Michener is to Hawaii.

Not too long ago, I stumbled upon Warshaw’s note in the back of my garage, amidst a stack of yellowing articles and letters. I’d completely forgotten this little nugget, but I vividly remember when it arrived. It was late 1989. I was a hopeful young journalism graduate, freshly minted from the University of Georgia, freshly cast off by my UGA girlfriend and freshly rendered unemployed and homeless by hurricane Hugo’s godawful smashing of the South Carolina coast. Forlorn and filled with a twenty-something’s boundless capacity for angst, I’d found temporary refuge in the basement of my dad’s Atlanta condo, and a temporary job shuffling fonts around on a Macintosh computer at his advertising agency. I reckoned the only way out of depression and self-pity was to write, and get the hell back to the beach.

Such was my desperation to return to the coast, even one as storm-blasted as Surfside Beach, South Carolina, I made queries to every editor I could think of. One was Win Minter, editor of Hot Times, Myrtle Beach’s answer to The Village Voice – that is, if the Voice‘s demographic was Kenny Powers. Bemused by this enthusiastic, ignorant young hick hack, Winter offered me a gig selling ads and writing whatever the hell I wanted – for very little money. But money didn’t matter. I packed my bags.

Kenny Powers. The pride of Myrtle Beach.

On a wing, hope and a prayer I’d also typed up a letter to Surfer. Through my teenaged years, Surfer was my favorite, favorite, favorite magazine. I’d memorized every issue and spilled copious amounts of cereal milk on pages poring over Mike Balzer and Jeff Divine’s photos of Martin Potter, Brad Gerlach and Shaun Tomson and studying the wisdom of editor Jim Kempton and writers like Ben Marcus, Steve Barilotti and of course, Warshaw. Completely unaware that as a Carolina cracker, I had a snowball’s chance in hell, I sent them some grainy pictures and a proposal for a first-ever feature on Jamaica, where I’d already spent months amidst incredible waves and more incredible people.

Surfer’s reply arrived a month or so later, via the U.S. mail, addressed to me! In a real envelope with an actual stamp! With sweaty palms and thundering heart, I tore it open. It was on real letterhead! Typed in real ink! Signed by Matt Warshaw! Holy shit. I felt like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, ripping into my autographed note from Pierre André and Little Orphan Annie.

Alas, a quick scan revealed that Mr. Warshaw would let me down as surely as Ralphie was to be crushed by Annie and her Ovaltine decoder pin. Surfer already had a rough map, and some rough plans, for a story on Jamaica. A map? Rough plans? From who? Son of a Bitch! But wait, Warshaw’s last line. Maybe he left the door open a tiny bit. Reach out, he suggested, to Donna Oakley, editor of Surfer’s version of Lonely Planet Travel Guides, better known as The Surf Report. So I did. When Oakley asked me to author a Jamaica guide, my jaw hit the floor.

Because I didn’t know any better, I worked really, really hard on that Surf Report. Again, for very little money. Surfer was pleased. So pleased in fact, that a year later, a call came from out of the blue from Surfer’s new editor Steve Hawk. To introduce more Surfer readers to The Surf Report, Hawk wanted to insert my travel guide into the magazine, with a picture of my buddy Will Hardgrove dropping into a epic left at the late, great Zoo. Are you fricking kidding me?

Today, on the first day of 2016, I bid The Scuttlefish, at the very least, a temporary farewell. See, thanks to editors like Warshaw, Steve Hawk (who would have a big hand in my later job as Surfer‘s first online editor) and plenty of others who were willing to take a chance on an eager writer stupid enough to see opportunity in rejection, I’m embarking on the second major book of my career. I’ll not reveal that much about it, except to say that it’ll be an ocean-centered project published by Chronicle Books. It’s the direct result of a ton of brainstorming between Scuttlefish founding father Brian Lam, writers Carolyn Sotka and Owen Burke, my agent Meg Thompson and former Outside features editor Jeremy Keith Spencer – who will be the book’s co-author. It was Spencer, incidentally, who rejected the first feature story idea I ever sent to Outside, but would later put me onto the job with Mr. Lam and TheScut.

Working with Brian editing and writing for The Scuttlefish and his mammoth baby TheWirecutter.com, has been an ongoing education and a revelation. As anyone who’s had the pleasure of working with Brian can attest, he possesses an incredibly rare combination of entrepreneurial drive, organization, creativity, digital and analog genius and straight up soul. He’s tipped me off to stories for the The New York Times, and has allowed me to work behind the scenes on a completely different oceanic collaboration that I can’t yet reveal at all. Should it come to fruition though, it will be the most important and inspiring projects I’ve ever been a part of – next to helping my daughter ride her first wave, and my son catch his first fish, that is.

Thanks to to everyone, for words written and memories made – and yet to come. May your 2016 be as great and deep as the ocean. — CD

]]>Farewell from Raw Paua and the Land Under Down Under.http://thescuttlefish.com/2016/01/farewell-from-raw-paua-and-the-land-under-down-under/
Sat, 02 Jan 2016 05:27:07 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39353

Live Dinner and Raw Paua. Photo: Pauline Nobels. Courtesy of Owen James Burke.

As the crew of the good ship Scuttlefish sets sail for new horizons, Raw Paua and I have but a handful of weeks left to spend in this fine South Sea summer. We’re not quite sure where we’ll roam, but it’s safe to say we won’t trudge too far from the sea or her foam.

Over Christmas, I had planned to replace a couple of Raw Paua’s walls, which had seen better days. Well, a couple of far more competent friends jumped in, one thing led to the next, and dangerous, short-circuited mystifications like this soon revealed themselves. Photo: Owen James Burke.

How’d you spend Christmas Eve? Photo: Owen James Burke.

Real men drink gutter oil. I don’t know how many shots of espresso it took, but you might chance a guess judging by the tarry resin-caked pot. Photo: Owen James Burke.

But it all paid off. New, marine-grade 6mm-ply walls and ceiling, a healthy dose of silicon and a Burmese flag, er, ensign, if you will. Photo: Owen James Burke.

The workshop, the garage, the kitchen, and the cabin all in one, adorned with memories of South Sea adventures. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Photo: Pauline Nobels. Courtesy of Owen James Burke.

It’s hard to say where I’ll end up, and as for Raw Paua, bless her heart, she’ll soon be wearing for sale signs on her rails and stern. But, before that mournful moment arrives, I wanted to sign off with a hearty thanks to Briam Lam for making my Scuttly roamings possible. And if you or anyone you know might make a good home for–or of–my dearest, most devout mobile partner in crime, drop a line.

‘It’s not the leavin’

That’s a-grievin’ me,

But my darling

Who’s bound to stay behind.’

—OJB

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On the Road to Meet the Andaman Sea Gypsies. Part III: The Shorebound Moken and the Plight of the Andaman Sea Gypsy.http://thescuttlefish.com/2016/01/on-the-road-to-meet-the-andaman-sea-gypsies-part-iii-the-shorebound-moken-and-the-plight-of-the-andaman-sea-gypsy/
Fri, 01 Jan 2016 21:17:44 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39327

Photo: Owen James Burke.

After over a week of dead-end slogging from port to port in Burma, I finally found a group of Moken living on an island near the Thai border. There were less than a hundred of them at the time of my visit, and though they were so close to shore and its modern facilities, they remained nationless with no political representation, no identification–that means no healthcare. Apart from generators and cisterns, they had gained none of the societal comforts that might be associated with moving ashore–and, in doing so, seem to have been forced to abandon old ways. This small village, for example, no longer has any of their traditional kabangs, the beautiful teak longboats designed for offshore sailing in which the Moken have been living and roaming in flotillas for centuries. The vessel above is a scaled down version of the kabang, the stone-aged Andaman Sea dugout longboat.

Fishing, like in other Andaman Sea communities during the monsoon season, is largely restricted to the tidal flats where crabs, small fish, sharks and bivalves are collected. Despite political oppression–or what may better be described as abandonment–these Moken seem to make out alright. Photo: Owen James Burke.

The elders of this village–formerly a flotilla–decided to move ashore about 15 years ago for healthcare and education, if not for themselves, then for their children. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Why move ashore? That was the first question I had. The general consensus among the handful of village elders I interviewed (with a translator) seemed to be opportunities like healthcare and schooling for children. The Thai government have begun to issue Thai identity cards, but unlike full-blown citizenship, they offer marginal access to state-run schools and hospitals. Further, the process is slow-going for any number of reasons; the Thai government, if asked, would state that it has much larger, more pressing matters to face, and tracking down the small but scattered population of Moken (estimated at around 2,000) living in and around Thailand and Burma is no small chore–to that, I can surely attest.

‘We can fish, we can grow gardens, we can eat. But we can’t go to the hospital. We need identification.’ Photo: Owen James Burke.

Above: Fishing skiffs lie in the mudflats at low tide beside the newly erected school–a major point of pride for this small seaside community. Some of the children attending this small, newly erected schoolhouse on stilts, their parents hope, will attend university on the mainland. Photo: Owen James Burke.

This diesel generator (red, just left of center) is what these Moken depend on to make up for slow months during monsoon season. When the wind and rain abates sometime at the end of the western calendar year, plastic tubes are attached to the machine which supply surface air to divers who reach depths of up to 100 feet while relying on this rusty steel contraption. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Women don’t generally go out on excursions, though, traditionally, they would tend to the boats and children while the men were subsurface. In this community, which has been shorebound for about 15 years, women wait ashore for the fishing boats to return, at which point it is their duty to offload the boats and sort the fish. Children, generally, help. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Old and new. Above is a modern interpretation of a kabang, the traditional boat which at one point in time men were (and still, even, in some communities, I hear) required to build in order to prove that they were spouse-worthy. These days the boats are tied up to stilted houses just offshore of Ranong, Thailand. Photo: Owen James Burke.

My ride both to and fro this island was dodgy. Squalls came and went without warning or mercy. We hit two within two hours, and shipped more water than I’m comfortable divulging, if only for the sake of my poor mother, but this is the only tangible reality for people living and depending on the Andaman Sea. Photo: Owen James Burke.

It would be impossible to bear any more respect or admiration for any peoples or cultures on this earth than the Andaman seafarers; their resilience is both inspirational and astounding. I only hope that in some way, somewhere down the line, I can return the kindness and hospitality they showed my during my brief but metamorphic time with them, their culture, their island, and their sea. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

But not all of the Moken are ashore, or even near the mainland–at least not yet. Many are still roaming the high seas, probing the ever-depleting reefs of the Mergui Archipelago deeper and deeper (sans mask, fins or aqualungs), trading their catch with navy personnel for precious dry goods like rice and petrol. Many haven’t ever held a single note of Burmese Kyat or Thai Baht in their palms. They, perhaps by equal measures of grace and misfortune, have no need for engaging in monetary matters, yet. They remain, in every sense, the outsiders.

And somewhere out there, all alone on the seaward side of some government-restricted, navy-occupied island, a procession of Moken in kabangs is lashing down their sailing houses, pointing to windward, and awaiting the next gale.

A pale-gray haze lay over the port of Myeik, backed by a droning cacophony of outboard motors and dredges. Few were talking. Almost no one was smiling. The scene looked bleak, and the scarcity of the sun didn’t brighten the picture.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

But then almost all commercial fishing ports carry this tone. It was only later, in Thailand, that I came to realize how close to the edge of hell some of these people were living.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

With no permission granted from the government to visit the Mergui Archipelago where the Moken–a small, disenfranchised group of sea-dwelling ethnic Austronesians known in Burma as the Selung–are said to live, I had left Yangon for Myeik, 535 miles to the south where my travel agent–though she’d advised against it–suggested I might find a captain willing to sneak me out to meet the elusive virtuosos of the sea.

My flight had landed earlier that day and I’d caught a motorcycle taxi straight down to the port of Myeik, which I was told would be the busiest and therefore likeliest harbor for me to hitch a ride out to the Mergui Archipelago where the Moken are said to weather monsoon season.

I had no intention of spending a single night in Myeik–I’d already lost enough time in Yangon. It was still early in the morning, and as far as I could tell, the weather looked fair enough to set sail for open water.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

I jumped on the back of a motorcycle taxi and got off at the harbor.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

Selung is one of the Burmese words for the Moken, and I said it to everyone who looked my way. It was one of the few words I can recall learning while in Burma and it dictated my every move of the trip.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

Between snapping photographs and trying to figure out what the hell was going on all around me, I continued on saying “Selung?” to any mariner I saw, hoping someone might bite.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

While I was taking photographs of an old man in a long tail boat, he waved and gestured for me to come aboard. I had no way of knowing where he was going, but I had all my belongings with me and enough canned food to last a day or so. I hopped on.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

A young man who was probably no older than 20 tossed a few grocery bags into the bow, untied us, hopped aboard and shoved off.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

He smoked heavily, intently. He looked exhausted, or distraught—I couldn’t quite tell, and I had no real way of asking, not that it was my place to do so. In his plastic shopping bags were a few cartons of cigarettes, canned sardines and some cookies.

This is what a Burmese fisherman with him takes to sea.

As we crossed the river mouth, I noticed a small swell wrapping in from around the coast. If it’s this bad in here. . ., I started thinking to myself. But then I was more interested in where this young man was going, and what he’d be doing. That was, after all, my best chance at achieving what I’d come all this way for.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

We pulled up alongside a wooden fishing trawler and my questions were answered, if only vaguely.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

All operations aboard stopped when the crew caught a glimpse of me. The captain—at least I can only assume that’s who he was—stuck his head out from the bridge and waved me aboard. People sure were welcoming along the waterfront here, curiously. I couldn’t help but reflect on my childhood, which, in summation, was spent lingering around docks. Only once or twice had a perfect stranger ever invited me on their boat, let alone cracked a smile in my direction.

These Burmese sea dogs couldn’t get enough of the idea of having this gangly, pasty westerner aboard their ship. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Joining this excursion sounded good, in a Jack London sort of way. My Burmese would certainly have improved. But then, I didn’t know how long I might be stuck out there. A few days would have been fine, but weeks, or even months were also possibilities, and Dixon, my editor, gracious as he is, surely would have been forced to set about finding my replacement after more than a week or so of my missing. No, I wouldn’t be getting on this boat–likely a blessing, though for reasons I was yet to appreciate at the time.

Behind these pleasant, light-hearted smiles were young, desperate minds mulling over unanswerable questions like when–or even whether–they’d see their land, families or wives again. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

The reality of home for Burmese seamen. Work is perpetual, pay minimal. Photo: Owen James Burke.

The incessant drone of humming diesel engines dredging the river mouth of Myeik, one of Burma’s large fishing ports, was something of a nuisance to those ashore. To the teenaged boys running the machines day and night so that their fathers could steam commercial fishing boats in and out of port, it was little more than the dial tone soundtrack to their lives. I wondered if they even noticed it anymore. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

We left our friend and rafted up against a ferry on the island of Pahtaw Pahtet, home to a sizable fishing village. I clambered over the rail of the ferry and across the deck, up the gangway and into the fishing village where, yet again, all eyes were on me.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

Hoards of fishermen and other mariners seemed to be lining up for the ferry back across the river as I made my way into the village. Once there, a man approached me and, to my surprise, in perfect English, asked me what I was looking for.

“The Moken,” I said.

“Who?”

“Sea Gypsies–er, Selung,” I corrected myself.

“Ah, Selung. Go to Kawthaung, closer to Selong people.”

Was this another wild goose chase? I’d flown here, to Myeik, because I was told this was the place from which to reach them.

My new acquaintance took me gently by the arm—in the way a grandfather might—and directed me back toward the ferry. This would be the last ride home for the night, he explained, and I was glad he caught me before I ended up spending the night in the bush swarmed by mosquitos. My other ride had since departed.

My first ride turned back for Myeik. I was fending for myself on this island with not a lick of Burmese. Photo: Owen James Burke.

I asked him what he’d been doing on the island, and he told me that he was a retired banker, doing some boatbuilding and repairs to keep busy and spry. I commended him.

“So why can’t I get to the Selung islands from here?” I wanted him to make his reasoning clear before I hopped on yet another plane for another town.

“Seven, eight, maybe ten hours by boat. The sea is very dangerous this time of year. Many captains will not go to sea now, and the government does not let them bring foreigners. Come back in six months and you will find a boat.”

He wasn’t the first person to feed me this advice and, growing impatient with my disposition, wasn’t enthralled to receive it again, sage as it might well have been.

Arriving back in Myeik, I thanked him for his advice, however detrimental it was to my plans, and we exchanged goodbyes.

I walked out to the edge of the road and waved down a motorcycle—every vehicle in Myeik seems to be a taxi, once you raise your hand.

I was ready for a float in the pool, but my driver, a devout Buddhist, insisted that I visit “Myanmar’s most beautiful temple” for sunset.

So up the hill we went. Naturally, I wasn’t wearing proper garb, so the driver took off his longyi—the post-colonial version of the larger, more elaborate paso, effectively similar to the sarong worn by Malay men—and handed it to me.

He showed me how to wear it and then said he’d wait while I visited the temple.

I didn’t want him sitting around for me as I didn’t know how long I’d be, but he assured me it wasn’t a problem. I found the Burmese very accommodating in this way, which, thanks to the importance western civilization places on time, tended to make me feel guilty.

I pointed to a cafe and invited him to join me for tea first.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

It was golden hour now. There were a few clouds reflecting the dimming sunlight down onto the gilded temple, and I was glad I’d come.

I took my shoes off, made my donation and started up the steps. A monk, eager to speak English, asked me what I was doing there, and I told him I was in search of the Selung.

“Go to Kawthaung,” he replied, without missing a beat. It was unanimous. I decided I’d book a flight to Kawthaung the next morning.

The old monk invited me to pray with him. It’d been a while–and that’s the understatement of the century–but I couldn’t help but oblige. He was polite, and I was both stunned and enchanted by the beauty of this temple perched atop a precipice overlooking the harbor. The assistance of divine intervention was looking more and more like my only hope of getting to the Moken, and now was as good a time as any to pray, I surmised.

“The most beautiful temple in Myanmar.” I can’t say how many times I heard this said elsewhere, but each and every time, I couldn’t disagree. Photo: Owen James Burke.

The monk led me through the down-up, down-up, down-up ritual, and everyone present—the temple is a social scene at sunset, especially for young lovers—watched keenly. I guess I passed the test, because there was a round of applause at the end.

Afterwards, I walked over to the wall and caught the last rays of the setting sun as it tucked behind the hill on the tiny island I’d just visited.

Panoramic photo: Owen James Burke.

It was getting dark now and coming time to find my ride home, if he was still there. Sure enough, he was—at the very least, he must have wanted his threads back.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

He dropped me back at the hotel where I strolled into the bar for a bite.

“Raw prawn salad” soused in lime and curry. Caught by whom? I’m still afraid to guess, and at the time, I hadn’t a clue. I imagine shrimp, which I’ve since stopped eating, would taste a little less sweet to me today. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Dinner in Burma is a curiously inexpensive affair, even by Southeast Asian standards. Three dishes, three cocktails and one large bottle of Myanmar beer ran me about $9 USD. A real drinker could achieve some serious rotting of their viscera here. Signing by bill, I concluded that it was in my best interest to leave the restaurant and swim a few laps in the pool.

The next morning I made arrangements for a flight to Kawthaung as both the banker and the monk had advised. The next plane wasn’t until the following morning, so I drifted out into the street toward the harbor. If I retraced yesterday’s steps, I mused, chance might have it that I’d find a boat out to the islands in the meantime.

Being a westerner in Burma, you don’t tend to get very far in most places before someone offers either their services or assistance. I found the Burmese particularly so before I’d made it halfway down the block, a young taxi driver pulled up alongside me and asked where I was going.

I gave him my story, in so many words, and he said he’d come along with me to the island to translate. Great. There was just one thing—he would have to pick up a few schoolteachers and deliver them home first.

It was a little early for school to get out, I thought, but this guy—Jack, he called himself—seemed to be my best shot at finding a boat out of Myeik, so I went along.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

We jumped into Jack’s truck, and he told me it would only be a short ride to the school.

One hour later—I’d moved into the bed of the truck for fresh air and a better glimpse of the scenery—we arrived here:

Photo: Owen James Burke.

These children, their principal and the only English speaker at the institute told me, had never seen a westerner before. They formed a circle around me–pushing, laughing, screaming and staring, some sprinting away as fast as their feet would carry them. A few worked up the courage to shake hands or swap high-fives. It was my twenty-seventh birthday, and though I wasn’t at sea as I’d hoped–on the contrary: this was the farthest from the sea I’d ever spent a birthday–I couldn’t have imagined spending it any differently. But then, I did feel a little moral remorse for disrupting class.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

Back in Myeik. Photo: Owen James Burke.

By the time we’d retrieved and delivered all six instructors, another hour-and-a-half back into Myeik, there was scarcely any daylight left. So much for making it down to the harbor, let alone the islands. Jack then said he knew a hotel owner who was also a sea captain with a good boat, so we stopped in for a can of beer to find out whether his friend would be willing to take me out to the Mergui archipelago.

The old captain’s house in Myeik. Photo: Owen James Burke.

The old captain, whose hotel was empty, said that he knew where some Moken were staying, and would be happy to take me to them, but a storm offshore would delay our trip by at least two or three days. I told him thanks but no thanks, that I didn’t have the time. And it was true, I didn’t–I had a week before I had to be back in Bangkok, and delaying two or three days, or potentially more, might cost me a very expensive plane ticket back home.

Besides, I had my flight to Kawthaung scheduled for the morning, and the prospects of this old skipper and his tired wooden trawler were, at any rate, less than comforting.

Jack brought me back to the hotel where, rattled and bruised from three hours of riding in the back of a pickup on a rubbly dirt road, I packed for Kawthaung and swam laps in the pool under the stars until well past midnight, wondering if any better luck lay ahead.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

Weeks later, reading investigative reports on the sea slave trade published by TheAssociated Press and The New York Times‘ Ian Urbina earlier this year, I got to thinking back on the sight of these ships, endlessly strewn along the horizon in Myeik. Most of the indentured or enslaved fishermen were Burmese citizens who had been somehow coerced–kidnapped or shanghaied (that is essentially drugged and kidnapped), according to the AP story.

I came to a stark and sudden realization that it’d be impossible to distinguish whether or not these were the same slave-run ships sending livestock feed, pet food and frozen shrimp through supply chains that would land in the cans and on the shelves of companies and stores like Iams (pet foods), Meow Mix, Wal Mart and Safeway in the US and EU. They certainly didn’t look any different from the vessels in photographs published by the AP and The Times. With such little regulation in place, and in such close proximity to Thailand, it’s not difficult to imagine why or how Thai-owned slaveships—among others—might seek refuge (and more unwitting recruits) in Burmese ports like Myeik, too, but further investigation would be required to validate that supposition.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

The scope of the slave-based fishing economy hit me in Ranong, Thailand, where a nationwide moratorium on commercial fishing had just been instated. Most vessels had followed government orders, but others, according to my captain (photographed below), had skirted offshore in order to retain their enslaved crews and continue operating in less-trafficked waters—“The Outlaw Ocean,” as Ian Urbina so poignantly placed his finger on the daily civil and environmental injustices taking place in the monolithic swathe of blue that makes up over two-thirds of this big blue marble.

An eerily still, usually humming Ranong Harbor, Thailand, where seafood from all over the Indian Ocean–caught legally and otherwise–is processed and exported to any nation, supplier or franchise willing to accept their high-volume, low-cost commodities with as few questions and qualms as possible. Photo: Owen James Burke.

For well over a year, the EU has been threatening to add Thailand, the world’s third largest seafood exporter, to their list of nations banned from exporting food to the EU. Meanwhile, The United States shows no intentions of proposing any legislation that might affect the $7 billion USD per year industry (2013 statistics, courtesy of SeaFish.org), while representatives of companies like Wal Mart have issued limp statements along the lines of “We care about the men and women in our supply chain, and we are concerned about the ethical recruitment of our workers,” with absolutely no commitment to probing into the matter at all, so long as peeled and deveined shrimp continue to reach their freezers at pennies a piece. But that leaves it to you, dear reader–your dollar, your decision.

As for my search for the Moken amidst the monsoon gales, that finally came to an end on my way out of Burma, after I’d decided to cut my losses and accept defeat, thanks in no small part to this chatty captain who led my through not only one but two gales in his tiny boat. That is, however, yet another story under way at this very moment, and with any luck I’ll finish it before the ball drops over Times Square tonight. Stay tuned . . .

]]>This Is Life in an Andaman Sea Village During Monsoon Season. A Photo Essay.http://thescuttlefish.com/2015/12/this-is-life-in-an-andaman-sea-village-during-monsoon-season/
Thu, 31 Dec 2015 00:28:39 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=38854

One moment, the Burmese coast of the Andaman Sea looked like this, frenzied and white-horsed, with gale force winds and pelting–literally stinging–rain. The next, it would abate to the sobering serenity of still air and blue skies. All of this has no bearing on the people living in small stilted villages on the Andaman Sea, who make their homes and feed their children day-in, day-out, year-round, come wind, hail, rain or shine. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Watching these small narrow boats fade out on the horizon behind a line of squalls chilled my bones to the marrow. Photo: Owen James Burke.

The sound of the rain meeting this tarpaulin-tin city was tremendous. It hushed all conversation and jarred your concentration. Photo: Owen James Burke.

But then, moments later, it would look like this, but regardless of the weather, tide or hour, these longboats seemed to be buzzing in and out port all day long. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Some were covered in the fashion of the traditional Moken Kabang, a live-aboard vessel designed around stone-aged dugout longboats. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Less timber for building kabangs has resulted in sparser designs for many Andaman Sea communities, who’ve begun to improvise covers using thatch or tarps. Photo: Owen James Burke.

My iPhone’s weather forecast for the extent of my time in Kawthaung.

The tides look deceptively large here; they’re not. But in shallow mudflats like these, a six-foot tide means the difference between hauling the day’s catch through a football field, knee-deep in mud or delivering it directly over the rail and onto the back porch. Needless to say, returning home at low tide is less than ideal for these fishermen, regardless of the season. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Through a whirlwind barrage of merciless rains and squalls, piers, stilts and abodes are under constant repair. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Relatively large fish like these are a rare delicacy. Here are the frames, or skeletons, which are what the locals keep after they’ve sold the high-fetching fillets at market. Smoking, of course, helps preserve the meat. The matriarch of this household generously offered me a beautiful palmful of this delicacy, but I couldn’t accept. Photo: Owen James Burke.

She was also sautéing some mussels, which are much more readily available, and she had me there; I couldn’t help but indulge. Photo: Owen James Burke.

I pondered how easy it would be to snap a limb–especially one of my poultry legs–in one of these narrow gaps, and also how far we were from a hospital. I decided that it was much too far to entertain the idea of reaching one within any reasonable amount of time. Regardless, a hospital, at least at this given point in time, is a completely useless facility for the members this community, who were, apparently, largely undocumented citizens of The Republic of the Reunion of Myanmar. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Unlike the industrial complex of Myeik to the north, the people of this village seemed generally and genuinely pleased with life. Most everyone smiled, and many invited me into their homes, which was refreshing after the undeniable reality of doom and gloom up north. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Superficially, they had little more than the roofs over their heads, the shirts on their backs and the rubber thongs on their feet, but on the whole, everyone seemed healthy–several of the elders seemed to be living well into their nineties. Spiritually, that is to say, they had it all. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Mullet, small dogfish and crabs seemed to be the staple sources of protein. The larger dogfish above was pregnant. I motioned to the women who were cleaning and preparing the day’s catch that she was bearing pups–and I’m sure they were well aware. I suggested they throw her back, undertaking a shabby sequence of charades to propose that saving the unborn pups might mean more food next year. They concurred–or at least obliged–and we set her free. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Women sat on the ends of the piers all day receiving catch, mostly banding the claws of these crabs, many of whom worked without gloves. Every once in a while you’d hear a hushed exclamation, and see a crab with a death grip on a finger. Cool as you like, the women would casually flick the crustaceans off their hand and get back to it. Photo: Owen James Burke.

If you’re a fan of the blue crab of the eastern United States, you’d feel right at home dining on these puppies. Photo: Owen James Burke.

The berried she crabs–that is, the egg-bearing females–were not so easily returned to the sea. And fair enough, if any one species appeared to be flourishing, it was this ornate, speckled crab, and the precious protein packed into their eggs which are, nutritionally speaking, priceless. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Another staple was this gorgeous and otherworldly zebra-branded melo melo sea snail, which also, on occasion, produces a highly coveted pearl, the sale of which has sustained communities like these and the Moken, the semi-nomadic sea-dwelling people I’d originally set out to find, for hundreds of years. Photo: Owen James Burke.

There were nearly two-foot waves rolling in over the mudflats at times, which resembled open-ocean swells and astounded me considering these islands were so well protected. Photo: Owen James Burke.

The women who weren’t separating and preparing the catch for market sat side by side with the men in flooding boats mending nets and bailing buckets all day long. No rain gear, no cover. Under the blazing sun or a barrage of rain, no one seemed to bat an eye. Photo: Owen James Burke.

. . . Except when they caught sight of me and my camera, which confounded them a great deal. Photo: Owen James Burke.

And it rained, and rained, and rained. Photo: Owen James Burke.

The front porch served as the living room in most households, where a thatched roof kept most of the rain out. Plants and furniture lining the walkway gave the community a welcomingly snug and homely atmosphere. Photo: Owen James Burke.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

Never mind the weather. No one seemed to be hiding out inside. Photo: Owen James Burke.

So close, yet so far. I was told that the Moken lived on the other side of the far islands above, but being so close to the Thai border, customs offers patrolled persistently. Making the passage without being nabbed was “almost impossible,” I was told . Still, I came into an internal conflict from my seat in this infinity pool at sunset: How could I be sitting here at the Victoria Cliff Hotel, waiters at my beckoned call, while the people I was trying to meet were shoring up their houses and boats in preparation for the next gale, just far enough offshore to be out of reach, no doubt? Photo: Owen James Burke.

Sean Collins with one of his early hand-drawn maps of swell, reef and bathymetry.
Photo: Chris Dixon

It’s damned difficult for me to believe, but it’s been four years since surf forecaster Sean Collins died of a heart attack. He wasn’t surfing some off-the-grid Baja point break, but simply enjoying a game of tennis. Sean was a buddy, a competitor and a colleague since I first met him back in 1995 when we were working on the respective launches of Surfline.com and Surfermag.com(here’s a Wayback Machine link to one of the site’s first home pages, built using raw HTML). Collins’ Surfline.com would become the world’s first definitive online surf forecasting service. And though Collins kept some cards very close to his chest, he and I talked technology and where this new thing called the World Wide Web was heading at least once a week. Like any competitors, we butted heads occasionally, but I constantly marveled at his discipline and the technology Sean managed to pioneer; live surf cameras, wave models and cellular modems to broadcast big wave contests from a boat off Todos Santos. Without his early warnings of swells, I never would have had some of my surf stories published in The New York Times, and it’s arguable that my book Ghost Wavewould never have seen a printing press.

Today, Becky Fogel, a producer at Science Friday sent me a link to a story she just published on Collins and surf forecasting. I think she did a terrific job – and not just because she honored me with an interview. Give her story Catching a Break a read, and if you went surfing today and used a forecast or live camera, from any service, take a moment to thank Sean Collins. — CD

]]>Wish You Were Here: On a Boat Somewhere in the Andaman Sea, On the Way to Meet the Andaman Sea Gypsieshttp://thescuttlefish.com/2015/12/wish-you-were-here-on-a-boat-somewhere-in-the-andaman-sea-on-the-way-to-meet-the-andaman-sea-gypsies/
Tue, 22 Dec 2015 23:14:37 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39290

Photo: Owen James Burke.

Several months ago, I visited the Burmese and Thai coasts of the Andaman Sea hoping to meet a nationless seafaring people of Austronesian ethnicity known as the Moken or Selung. I wanted to find out how they survive the monsoon months, when pelting rain and violent gales sweep across the Andaman Sea almost daily with little warning and no mercy. This would become one of those days.

An hour after I took this photo, the rain was so heavy and the air so humid that my lenses were completely fogged (and soaked). The seas turned vicious and the swells built steadily. The trusty long tail boat and its nasally weed-wacker outboard engine delivered us home safely enough, despite having to bail the entire trip back ashore. As for the Moken, it would be a few more ill-advised trips in small leaky boats before I’d get to make their acquaintance, but more on that soon.

–OJB

]]>Watch Kelly Slater Surf His New Wave Pool for the Very First Timehttp://thescuttlefish.com/2015/12/watch-kelly-slater-surf-his-new-wave-pool-for-the-very-first-time/
Fri, 18 Dec 2015 23:02:26 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39281

“Seeing that, I’m a hundred percent positive our team built the best wave that anyone’s ever made. It’s a freak of–technology.” — Kelly Slater. Screenshot from the video below.

There have been a handful of artificial waves popping up around the world, but Kelly Slater and Co.’s most recent endeavor is incontestably the best yet. ‘Nuff said.

]]>Watch: This Is What It’s Like to Glide Between Two Continents in Iceland’s Silfra Fissurehttp://thescuttlefish.com/2015/12/watch-this-is-what-its-like-to-glide-between-two-continents-in-icelands-silfra-fissure/
Fri, 18 Dec 2015 02:17:26 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39274

Screenshot from Hashem Al-Ghaili’s video.

Silfra fissure, in Iceland’s Thingvellir National Park holds some of the clearest, cleanest water on the face of the earth. It’s also where the North American and Eurasian continental plates meet, but not for much longer, relatively speaking.

Screenshot from Hashem Al-Ghaili’s video.

The Silfra fissure is diverging at a rate of about 2 centimeters per year, but there are still parts of the fissure where you can place your palms on both continental plates, for now.

Somewhere along the northern reaches of California State Highway One. Photo: Owen James Burke.

There are few places left on earth as rife with life as Northern California’s Lost Coast. Several years ago, after abandoning my partner, job and apartment to hop into the back of a van and go salmon fishing with a couple of friends, I encountered these lonely little peaks along the road. With no board or wetsuit–this was strictly a fishing mission–we had to pass them by, but the empty A-frames along this desolate stretch of beach have been on my mind ever since. Someday, I keep telling myself. . . .

How was the salmon fishing, you ask? I think this picture speaks for itself:

Photo: Owen James Burke.

–OJB

]]>“The Lady of the Lake.” This Is What the Gales of November Look Like on Lake Eriehttp://thescuttlefish.com/2015/12/the-lady-of-the-lake-this-is-what-the-gales-of-november-look-like-on-lake-erie/
Wed, 16 Dec 2015 21:03:48 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39251

“There have been moments on Lake Erie where I have lowered my camera,looked over it & literally out loud said to myself “What. The. Hell… Did I just see” and my jaw drops.. This was one of those moments” — Photographer Dave Sandford.

. . . And, this is the weather that took down the 729-foot iron ore carrier the Edmund Fitzgerald on nearby Lake Superior over 40 years ago this fall.

London photographer Dave Sandford wanted to see the gales of November on the Great Lakes for himself, so he set out for Canada this past fall to capture some of the most treacherous conditions Lake Erie could produce. The results are enough to evoke terror and humility in any waterperson, salty or sweet.

]]>Wish You Were Here: The Lobster Roll. A South Sea Interpretation.http://thescuttlefish.com/2015/12/wish-you-were-here-the-lobster-roll-a-south-sea-interpretation/
Wed, 16 Dec 2015 04:42:11 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39228Scuttlefish writer Owen James Burke is currently rambling around New Zealand in a camper van with a camera, surfboard and speargun in search of stories, waves and fish. We’re putting together a waterperson’s guide to the island nation, but meanwhile, we’ll be publishing stories and photographs, short updates along the way from the Yankee in Kiwiland. -CD

Photo: Owen James Burke.

This past week, I’ve been spending a lot of time rooting around in the kelp-laden rocks along the lobster-rich eastern shore of New Zealand, where spring tides bring the post-spawn crustaceans into the shallows.

So, naturally, having had lobster–or ‘crayfish’ as they’re known in New Zealand–about nine different ways (sashimi–still my favorite, steamed, seared in oil with chillies, curried, in a taco . . .) I couldn’t help but turn back and attempt to recreate the simple but classic New England lobster roll–or at least my South Pacific take on the dish–as I knew it growing up.

The beauty of the lobster roll–I think, or at least hope I speak for all lobster roll aficionados when I say this–lies in its simplicity.

For some strange reason, it seems that as I flip through my back pages and recall all the New England seafood establishments–from rat-infested holes-in-the-wall to white tablecloth Martha’s Vineyard, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lobster roll served atop anything other than a cheap, processed, pillowy potato bread hotdog roll.

Perhaps this is in Yankee response to the southern classic Po’ Boy, or the DelMarVa/Eastern Shore soft shell crab sandwich, both institutionalized dishes STRICTLY served on white wonderbread, if memory serves me. The most pragmatic conclusion I can make for this arguably atrocious each of these regional delicacies of my beloved mother country is that cheap, processed bread doesn’t stifle the flavor of fresh seafood in a way that more flavorful artisan breads might(?)–an inexcusable effrontery if there ever were one.

So, here’s my take on the wonderfully simplistic lobster roll, as best as I can recount from my ill-spent youth along the New England shoreline:

Ingredients.

One steamed and chilled 1-1.5-pound lobster (claws optional, though I prefer them)

One potato bread hotdog roll

One or two teaspoons of butter

One teaspoon of mayonnaise (optional)

Parsley or chives (at least something green for a garnish)

Sea salt

Fresh black peppercorn

Recipe.

Photo: Owen James Burke.

1. Steam or boil a fresh, live lobster, preferably seaside, over an open fire under wild skies–I’ll let you be the judge of how long to leave it in the pot, but be sure not to make the grave mistake of drying it out. (If you see fat spilling through the shell, you know you’ve gone too far. Put that thing on ice immediately.)

2. Set lobster aside or on ice to chill.

3. Once chilled, pull the tail off and crack into the claws (if your lobster has claws), and cut the meat into chicken nugget-sized lumps.

4. Lightly–and I do mean ever-so-lightly–toast a hotdog bun. If you have a toaster oven, a little smear of butter beforehand isn’t a bad course of action, in my book. You could do the same with a tiny dose of mayonnaise at this point, too. (I may be persecuted for saying this by some, however.)

6. Draw a small amount of butter (<tbsp.) and drizzle atop, adding sea salt and black pepper to taste.

7. Garnish with the (green) herb of your choice.

Buon appetito!

—OJB

]]>Wish You Were Here: Cook Strait, New Zealandhttp://thescuttlefish.com/2015/12/wish-you-were-here-cook-strait-new-zealand/
Mon, 14 Dec 2015 05:58:25 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39221Scuttlefish writer Owen James Burke is currently rambling around New Zealand in a camper van with a camera, surfboard and speargun in search of stories, waves and fish. We’re putting together a waterperson’s guide to the island nation, but meanwhile, we’ll be publishing stories and photographs, short updates along the way from the Yankee in Kiwiland. -CD

Photo: Owen James Burke.

After a good south swell, the waters around Cloudy Bay turn, well, just that. But it’s not the mucky brown silt you find on the Hudson River in New York after a great deluge, but an aqua-blue/green reflected by New Zealand’s nephrite jade, or pounamu as it’s known in the Māori language.

Pretty as it was, this haze kept me from diving, but then my cooler’s not looking to bad these days, and I did find a place to park up for the night with a tidy little wave conveniently breaking around the corner and no takers. Oh, woe is me. . . .

—OJB

]]>A WWII German Submarine Believed to Have Been Piloted by Axis Exiles Just Washed Ashore in Argentina, 70 Years Laterhttp://thescuttlefish.com/2015/12/a-wwii-german-submarine-believed-to-have-been-piloted-by-axis-exiles-just-washed-ashore-in-argentina-70-years-later/
Fri, 11 Dec 2015 03:01:32 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39213

Photo via World News Daily Report.

A mini German U-boat has been hidden beneath the seas off Argentina for roughly 70 years, but is reported to be in remarkable shape after a group of Norwegian tourists discovered the remains of the vessel during a two-week-long bike trek through the country.

Archaeologists assume that the unterseeboot (“undersea boat”) came ashore in a rush of heavy undersea current after the massive 8.3 earthquake that shook Chile last fall.

The mini U-boat is the farthest of any known WWII German submarine wreck ever found, and WWII historians are scratching their heads wondering how many more may remain at large off the South American coast.

Fernando Martin Gomez, a Buenos Aires historian, estimates that about 5,000 German Nazis–predominantly those of high rank–fled to Argentina after World War II. Many were extradited, tried and sentenced; others were given citizenship and went on to live relatively normal but highly guilt-ridden lives.

Further, according to the World News Daily Report, a History Professor at Oxford University by the name of Winston H. Hollinger even entertains the idea that Hitler himself, along with a select group of cronies, may have even used one of these vessels to escape to South America. . . .

When I was a kid, I was a Beatles fanatic. I was turned onto the band, by my mom of all people, who for some reason gave me the album Magical Mystery Tour when I was maybe nine years old. For some reason too deep for my young mind to fathom, I literally wore out the vinyl grooves pondering its dense layers of sound and meaning. Yellow Submarine and Revolver would have the same effect. The band’s legend was always writ a little more large for me because my aunt lived in a building called the Oliver Cromwell, right across the street from the Dakota, which was home to John Lennon and Yoko Ono. She caught occasional glimpses of the pair ducking in and out of their home right there in front of Central Park. I always craned my neck when we walked by the Dakota, but never got my own glimpse. When Lennon was shot, 35 years ago yesterday, I remember my aunt telling me how for days it was nearly impossible to leave her building for of all the mourners. Even though I was only in eighth grade, I wished I could have been among them.

Today, Scuttlefish commodore Brian Lam hipped me to something I didn’t know about Lennon. He actually became a pretty hardcore sailor late in life. In fact, he credits a hairball journey in June, 1980 from Rhode Island to Bermuda with curing a debilitating bout of writer’s block. It was a voyage that inspired “Watching the Wheels,” “I’m Losing You,” and an early version of “Woman.”

John Lennon and his son Sean. Photo source: Unknown.

Lennon told Playboy a few months after the journey: “So, I was there driving the boat for six hours, keeping it on course. I was buried under water. I was smashed in the face by waves for six solid hours. It won’t go away. You can’t change your mind. It’s like being on stage; once you’re on there’s no gettin’ off. A couple of the waves had me on my knees. I was just hanging on with my hands on the wheel — it’s very powerful weather — and I was having the time of my life. I was screaming sea chanteys and shoutin’ at the gods! I felt like the Viking, you know, Jason and the Golden Fleece. I arrived in Bermuda. Once I got there, I was so centered after the experience at sea that I was tuned in, or whatever, to the cosmos. And all these songs came! The time there was amazing. Fred [Seaman] and Sean and I were there on the beach taping songs with this big machine and me just playing guitar and singing. We were just in the sun and these songs were coming out.”

It made me appreciate him even more.

A fascinating story from the Paste magazine archives details Lennon’s storm-tossed passage, and time in Bermuda, through an obscure 600-page journal that emerged from this seminal, if short, period in his life. In 2013, the organization WhyHunger created an immersive app based on Lennon’s Bermuda tapes.

]]>“I was Just a General Prick.” Barbarian Days Author William Finnegan on Surfing, Relationships and the Decisions We Make.http://thescuttlefish.com/2015/12/i-was-just-a-general-prick-barbarian-days-author-william-finnegan-on-surfing-relationships-and-the-decisions-we-make/
Tue, 08 Dec 2015 21:30:22 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39142Ed’s note: This is the final entry in a four-part interview with Barbarian Days author William Finnegan. You’ll find links to all the interviews at the end of this one.

“But everything felt different without Caryn: harsher, more jagged.” William Finnegan, with Caryn Davidson, 1971. Photo courtesy: William Finnegan.

CD: There’s something that struck me in reading Barbarian Days, and in my own life as a 48-year-old who’s now married with kids. First. I’m glad I had kids late, and second, I still feel really, really bad, sometimes terrible, about the way I’ve treated some of the women in my life. And that’s in part because of surfing. I wonder if you feel the same way. Just judging by the relationships you describe in the book. I mean, you were almost a father at 18. I’m wondering if you ever consider that alternate reality. What if you had become a parent young, and was surfing so much of a relationship killer? Were you a selfish sonofabitch? I was. I just wonder how you look back at the relationships you describe in the book, and what surfing did to those relationships.

BF: The short answer is I feel the same way you do. Both about when to have kids – also late, in my case – and what kind of boyfriend or partner I was when I was younger. I include in the book a conversation I had with a guy named André, a big-wave surfer. We met in Madeira. He was from Oregon, and he was really young, so I was surprised to hear that he was divorced. He started telling me about it, and it was a stark little story. Surfing broke up his marriage. You know, “These women gotta know what they’re getting into,” that sort of thing. He was actually hilarious. He said, “It’s like if you or I hooked up with a fanatical shopper. You’d have to accept that your entire life would be traveling around to malls. Or, really, more like waiting for malls to open.” He wasn’t trying to be funny. He was just thinking it through, from the other side, and I thought, Wow, great analogy. While we were talking, we were driving around looking for waves, and it wasn’t good, the tide was too high, so we ended up sleeping in the car by a surf spot — just a couple of shoppers waiting for the mall to open.

Madeira, 1998. Relationship killer. Photo courtesy: William Finnegan.

But I never really experienced that kind of stark conflict with girlfriends over surfing. “What do you mean you’re going surfing?!” For one thing, my life was rarely that settled or domestic when I was young. More often, with a girlfriend, we’d be traveling. So I might be dragging her to Maui or Sri Lanka or wherever. The girlfriends I’m thinking of, as I say this were people with more smarts and education than I had, people who really wanted to do something in the world, but who just weren’t sure what that was yet. Which left them open to my agenda, which almost always involved looking for waves. I usually had a portable project—I was usually working on a novel—so I was okay with living in a hut in the jungle near the coast in Sri Lanka. And maybe my girlfriend had a project to work on, which would be good, but maybe she didn’t. The whole enterprise was driven by my surf mania.

Looking back, I can see now how thoughtless, how stubborn, I was. My plans about where to go when were pretty much non-negotiable. If a girlfriend, even a serious girlfriend, had said, Why don’t we go live in Nepal for awhile because I’m interested in something there? That would have been out of the question. No, it’s not on the coast. I’m not gonna live inland.

Actually, I did live inland sometimes. I lived in London a couple of times, and later spent three winters in Montana. But those stints were pretty much on my terms, too. I loved Montana, worked at a ski area. Dragged a girlfriend there from California. I think I was just a general prick. I was so bullheaded about what I wanted to do, and surfing usually played heavily into whatever that was. I’d do almost anything to make sure I got waves, even when I was deeply in love.

Writing this book forced me to look at the life I didn’t choose. There was a pregnancy when I was 18. We didn’t go through with it, but talking it over with my childhood sweetheart, even now, 40 years later, was quite emotional. What might have been, what we might have had, if we had become parents then. I was so callow, I really didn’t think about it at the time. But now I can. And I can’t just say, Oh, that would’ve been a disaster. It would have been a different life. It might have been a more demanding, richer life. I would have had to grow up faster. In surf terms, it would’ve been more cramped, obviously. I couldn’t have left the U.S. after grad school and bummed around the world, chasing waves, for most of my 20’s. But that wouldn’t necessarily have been the worst thing for my soul. It’s the path not taken. And it’s as you say: surfing and its freedom imperatives probably helped determine some of those big, big life choices for me, certainly when I was young.

Later, when I got serious about making a living as a writer, and decided I needed to live in New York, I really had to fight the tidal pull of surfing to make that move. I was living at Ocean Beach, San Francisco, getting tons of waves, and I had to pick up and leave. And I thought, when I first moved to New York, This is it, there are no waves around here, I’m screwed. Maybe I’ll take the odd surf trip when work allows, become a vacation surfer. Arggh. Luckily, I was wrong about New York. There are waves. But for a while I was fairly freaked-out.

I was also really lucky with the woman I married. We met in 1980 in Cape Town. She had zero interest in surfing. Refused to even watch me surf. Has never taken a pic of me surfing, to this day, despite being around for some great sessions. Watching surfing is just too boring, she says. She’d rather shoot herself than pretend to be interested. But the flip side to all this extravagant indifference has been a ton of tolerance. She has never objected to my going surfing, never moaned about it. If I want to go, I should go. She’s good at amusing herself. Even when I’ve had close calls, in bigger waves, she hasn’t asked me to dial it back. She says she trusts my judgment – not sure about that call. I know a lot of surfers who’ve had problems with their partners about the amount of time they spend chasing waves—endless negotiations, especially once they have kids. I’ve been spared that kind of conflict.

CD: It’s interesting. To me, it’s never been a question of either or. It’s been more, surfing is part of who I am, but so are you, honey. I think a lot of people who don’t understand their surfing partners come to resent their surfing, or whatever that activity is that lights their fire. When it really isn’t and shouldn’t be looked at in those sorts of terms. It should almost be looked at from sort of a mental health perspective. If you’re locked into surfing, or a lot of other things – biking, skateboarding, snowboarding, whatever – you have to be able to express yourself that way, or have those experiences, or you kind of go nuts.

The 62-year-old Finnegan, feeding the addiction in Indonesia a few weeks ago. Photo courtesy: William Finnegan.

BF: Agreed. Mental health is a good way to put it. You need to be with somebody who has their own thing, and is happy to spend lots of time doing it. Somebody self-reliant, who doesn’t take it personally when you want to surf.

Mollie Finnegan, 2009. “She’s the most important person in my life.”
Photo courtesy: William Finnegan.

I actually have more conflict with my daughter. She says, “No, you can’t go surfing.” We’ll be in Martinique, or someplace, on vacation, and I’ll see some waves, and I’ll start to see some boards around. Ah, I can borrow a board, I’ll get some waves, alright! And she can read my mind, of course, and just puts her foot down. “No, you’re going snorkeling with me.” She’s 14. She’s like her mother—not interested in surfing—but without the tolerance. “You’re not leaving me sitting on the beach.” What can I do? I can’t scream and pout. I’m an adult. She’s the most important person in my life. We go snorkeling.

]]>Holy Hell. This is Why Giant Waves are the Greatest Show on Earth.http://thescuttlefish.com/2015/12/holy-hell-this-is-why-giant-waves-are-the-greatest-show-on-earth/
Tue, 08 Dec 2015 02:41:07 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39108

That’s gonna hurt. In fact it might just kill you. A frozen moment of carnage at Jaws.
All frame grabs courtesy: World Surf League.

Yesterday I had the honor of reporting on the the inaugural Big Wave World Tour Pe’ahi Invitational for Surfline.com. Holy hell. The. Most. Insane. Surf. Contest. Ever. Watching it live in my living room on, and wondering if Greg Long, Billy Kemper, Carlos Burle, Shane Dorian and a slew of other madmen were going to even survive this cerulean gladiator pit was a wild, stomach clenching ride – even from the safety of the couch.

This quiet little cove lights up but a few times every winter, but when it does–provided the sandbar is well-situated–it produces what I won’t hesitate to call a world-class wave, which is why I wouldn’t dare say where it is. That, and despite its size, it can be a deceptively critical wave. A conveyor-belt ebb tide running along the rocks to the right is what holds its 100 yard long perfection; it’s not the swells that threaten to swamp you–they’re generally no bigger than head-high–but the fearsome outgoing tide.

You can never really see how the surf’s breaking from the top of the hill, but when the bay is this cloudy, it’s a safe bet that you won’t be going spearfishing. Photo: Owen James Burke.

After careering over several icy passes on dirt roads, it didn’t even cross my mind to take the time to watch for rips and unseemly rocks lying under the takeoff zone. I’d gone spearfishing here more times than I could count. Arrogantly, I told myself I knew this bay well enough to paddle out effectively blind–I’d never seen in producing surf.

A more astute human being–and any seasoned surfer–might have taken the twenty minutes to learn this seascape, but when surfing and traveling alone, the voice of reason is wont to escape us.

I paddled out along the rocks to get into position for the first set, already coming. I let the first wave roll under me. What little sense I did keep with me that day at least told me to let one go by to get a feel for the takeoff zone. But as the second wave approached, slightly larger, I paddled out to meet it. No, not this one, the third looked larger. As I drew a line and started to paddle diagonally toward shore for the next wave, I felt a rush of water, which I figured the wave behind me was drawing. But just as I thought the larger wave would crest, it backed off and broke further inside, closer to the rocks. My realization was instantaneous: a massive full-moon tide was in effect, and I was sitting in the middle of a rip tide. I knew I didn’t have the arms to hold position in this lineup. I had to make for shore or risk being washed into the South Pacific with not a soul in sight.

I’d paddled my way across the tide and was nearing the middle of the bay where, although free of the seaward conveyor belt, I was still battling a formidable, menacing tide.

It was a good twenty minutes or more, in my estimation, before I made it back into the surf zone where I lazily paddled into a cracking left-hander, limply and exhaustedly slouching my way in without the frivolity of even the slightest turn.

Panting, alone, and worst of all defeated, I made shore and watched the sets pass by in endless, flawless symmetry.

–OJB

Photo: Owen James Burke.

]]>The Cocovore’s Fallacy. How a German Escapist’s Coconut Utopia Went to Hell in a Handbasket.http://thescuttlefish.com/2015/12/the-cocovores-fallacy-how-a-german-escapists-utopia-went-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/
Sun, 06 Dec 2015 21:57:40 +0000http://thescuttlefish.com/?p=39096

Did you ever read the book The Beach? The story of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century German nudist and ideologist August Engelhardt reads like a heinously nightmarish, psilocybin-riddled version of Alex Garland’s novel.

In the late 19th century, in the wake of the popularly published works of Darwin and Thoreau, many German youths were looking to get back into nature, a movement known as Lebensreform (Life Reform).

Some actually did. Unfortunately, in 1902, Alex Garland’s prophecy was not yet at the disposal of the young Engelhardt, a nudist and proponent of Lebensreform left Europe for the South Pacific island of Kabakon (now Papua New Guinea) with a library of books and an even more simplified idealogical approach: He was going to live on nothing but coconuts.

Engelhardt’s theory was that coconuts–how god-like they sit atop their skyward perch, how infinite in faculty–were a magical substance of divine provenance bearing all the sustenance a man needs; and if apes live on raw fruit, why shouldn’t we?

August Engelhardt stands underneath a palm tree with Berlin concert pianist Max Lützow at his feet. Lützow went to Kabakon to join Engelhardt’s sun-worshipping cocovore cult, The Order of the Sun. He died there, as did several other followers. Photo courtesy of Christian Kracht, author of Imperium.

“It’s easy to laugh at Engelhardt — and yet, his fixation on eating a dangerously narrow ‘pure’ and healthy diet has echoes in modern times,” writes NPR. Within a few years, his malnourished, malarial commune had largely abandoned him, and at 66 pounds, he was rheumatic, mentally ill, ulcerated, and, in summation, not doing too hot himself.

During World War I, he was imprisoned by Australian soldiers and later, after returning to Kabakon, found dead on the beach in 1919. Man, as it happens, cannot live on Cocos nucifera alone.

Read more on NPR, and to learn more about Engelhardt’s South Sea misadventure, read Christian Kracht’s 2012 fictionalized account of the story Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas, just recently translated into English.